Everything Changes Everything Stays the Same
by Rachel Wilder
Summary: Winona considers if this baby will change anything.  Set post season 2 - spoilers for Bloody Harlan.


Winona looked down at Raylan's still body. The regular beeps from the heart monitor are the only thing disturbing the silence. In some ways, it's comforting, though. He's alive and according to the nurse, he's asleep, not unconscious.

She brushed his hair back, perhaps subconsciously trying to disturb his slumber, to get him to open his eyes and reassure her that everything is going to be okay. The doctor said the surgery had gone well and although the bullet had nicked his liver, they were able to repair the damage.

Her eyes paused on the cast on his arm. According to the doctor, the broken elbow he'd sustained in his earlier altercation might be the more serious of the two injuries and although they hadn't had to do a surgical repair, they'd have to watch to make sure the crack in his clavicle healed up.

It was going to be different this time. At each point of her relationship with Raylan, things had felt and been different. This one was going to be different too. It had to be.

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It wasn't like they ever sat down and talked about having a baby. Just like they never really talked about Raylan's family or his job or where they'd move after his time at Glynco was up. Instead, one day Winona's period was late and that was it…they were having a baby.

Except they didn't. The day of the ultrasound, Raylan was late and Winona didn't want to worry, because it was usually some paperwork thing that got him held up, but he knew this appointment was important.

He never made it to the doctor that day. Catching the news in the car, with the word of a fugitive breaking out of the penitentiary down by Atlanta caught her attention. It was a good reason to not be at her appointment, but it made it all that much harder to have to talk to him that night.

The doctor was quiet while he worked with the ultrasound machine. Winona wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad one—she'd never had one of these tests before, but it sure made her wish Raylan was there to hold her hand and reassure her.

The second time the doctor asked if maybe her husband was going to join her, she knew. There wasn't a baby anymore. She told that doctor he'd been held up and the doctor gave her a sad smile and said that they could try again.

Raylan lay with her all night with his hand across her middle, trying to cover the place where the tiny baby had been as if with his hands he could keep the life in there. She wondered if Raylan remembered that the night in the motel, after he saw that pregnant woman almost be shot. He'd put his hand there again, just the same way he had the night they lost their baby.

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She'd always worried about Raylan and his job, but after the baby it got worse. They'd been stupid to just naively think things would be okay. Raylan left Glynco and he'd be gone for weeks at a time. She'd never know where he was. He'd just come back home quiet, usually nursing a knee or a shoulder or sporting a black eye.

It wasn't the kind of thing you brought a child into…not intentionally, anyway.

But this time, this time would have to be different, wouldn't it? Ever since she'd come back to him, it had felt different. He'd talked to her, even let her come down to Harlan and meet his people.

Course, he'd run off and gotten shot the day she told him about the baby. That wasn't any different.

She leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. His relaxed face, free of the lines that marked it when he was awake, looked like he had the day she met him in that courtroom all those years ago. His hair had a touch of gray, even, although she knew he was vain enough she should never mention it.

"'Nona?" he slurred, his voice soft and his lips thick.

"I'm here, baby," she replied. "We're both here."

Different. Same. She loved him, same as always and that's what was gonna make them a family. Nothing was really gonna change, except in every way it already had.

/fin/


End file.
